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Sunday, February 11, 2007

The Loneliest Lonesome. Canine art. Dog

I'm showing another painting as a work in progress. I got up at 5 am and went to my new studio to paint. The wood stove had the studio all warmed up as the fire lasted all night long. It was so nice!

A while back, we went toward Cut Bank, Montana on a photo shoot, and drove through Shelby on our way home. As we were cruising around the outskirts of town, looking for photos that I could turn into paintings, we saw this dog tied to the side of a trailer house. He was howling with lonesomeness and it broke my heart.

Of course I had to paint him. You see so many dogs tied to a spot where they're left in loneliness, until the dirt is beat smooth around them. They have no dog house for cold weather, no human comfort and sometimes I wonder how much they get fed. I can't bear to see this but I thought if I painted it, it might help people to remember their pets.

Another reason for painting this right now. We're inundated with stray cats. In our neighborhood, when people don't want to feed their animals, they turn them out to fend for themselves. We've had cats coming into our house at night through the cat door to eat. If they'd eat and leave, I wouldn't care so much, but some of them came in, marked the house with spray, then left. It was a nightmare to clean up and expensive too.

So now our cat door is locked and I'm feeding the strays outside. By spring, we'll have a dozen cats I'm feeding, I suppose. I guess we'll take them to the pound as our own two cats are all we want. I feel so sorry for them, I can't stand watching them as they search for food.

Anyway, this is the first bunch of paint on the canvas for this painting. I throw some paint on there and move it around with lots of turpentine until I have the shape of the animal I'm painting. Donna